[JURIST] A group of rights organizations and lawmakers on Monday called for Australia to investigate [press release, PDF] a top ranking official in the Sri Lankan High Commission [official website] in Canberra for war crimes violations allegedly committed by the Sri Lankan Navy during clashes with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) [JURIST news archive] in 2009. The call to investigate comes after the Australian International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) [official website] delivered a brief [The Age report] to the Australian Federal Police [official website] that they claim contains credible evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The high commissioner, Thisara Samarasinghe [official profile], is a former Sri Lankan navy admiral and was a commander during the last months of the war when naval ships allegedly fired on civilians. Samarasinghe claims that his actions during the war were not in violation of the rules of conflict. Calls for investigation come days before Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa [official profile] is scheduled to participate in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) [official website], a biannual meeting of the prime ministers and presidents of its member countries. The meeting will take place in Perth, Australia, where leaders are set to discuss both local and global issues and to develop related policies and initiatives.

On November 19, 1977, Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat visited
Israel, becoming the first leader of an Arab nation to officially
visit. Two years later, President Sadat became the first Arab leader
to recognize Israel by signing the Egyptian-Israeli
Peace Treaty.Read
President Sadat's address to the Israeli Knesset.